House lead prosecutor: We better be 鈥榗ooperative鈥�
4Ps Party-list Rep. Marcelino Libanan. — Facebook photo
Several members of the House of Representatives’ prosecution team agree: the Senate’s move to return the impeachment case against Vice President Sara Duterte to the House was unconstitutional.
But for one of the 11 prosecutors, it would be better to be “cooperative rather than combative” at this point just to get the long-delayed case going.
Lead prosecutor and 4Ps Rep. Marcelino Libanan acknowledged that the Senate and the House ceased to be equals under the impeachment proceedings—a point earlier made by Senate President Francis “Chiz” Escudero, who now also serves as the impeachment court’s presiding officer.
“We are now caught in a choice between being combative or cooperative,” Libanan said.
“If we are too aggressive, we might lose (the case). But if we cooperate with the orders of the court and we can present the evidence, we might win this. So our strategy is to act as prosecutors in front of impeachment judges.”
What Senate wants
The Senate wanted the House to certify that the impeachment complaint did not violate the constitutional ban against more than one complaint against an impeachable official within a year. The House also should indicate that it was willing to hold trial during the 20th Congress.
The articles of impeachment signed by 215 lawmakers on Feb. 5 and later backed by another 25 representatives, charged Duterte with corruption and other high crimes for her alleged misuse of up to P612.5 million in confidential funds from 2022 to 2023.
She also allegedly arranged for the assassination of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and Speaker Martin Romualdez should an alleged plot to kill her succeed.
For clarification
The prosecution team has decided to first seek clarification from the Senate before complying with the motion.
During its last plenary session this week, the House approved a motion not to immediately accept the return of its impeachment complaint from the Senate before the impeachment court makes this clarification.
They approved House Resolution No. 2346 certifying that the impeachment case against Duterte complied with Article XI of the 1987 Constitution. This has not yet been submitted to the Senate.
Questions
Taguig Rep. Bel Zamora, also a member of the prosecution team, said they wanted a “written clarification” from the Senate “just to clear everything” before submitting their response to avoid “technical issues.”
She asked why the impeachment court was questioning the House procedures “when the mere fact that we transmitted the articles of impeachment” showed its compliance.
Zamora also wondered whether they still needed to submit anything to the impeachment court during the current recess.
“As soon as these are clarified and the clarification is in accordance with the Constitution and the Senate rules on impeachment, and other existing laws, we will certainly abide,” added another House prosecutor, Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro.
“We’re talking about a different ball game here now. This is the impeachment court, they are the judges and we are prosecutors. We are morally bound to follow the orders of the impeachment court,” she added.
Some legal luminaries, including former Solicitor General Florin Hilbay, advised the House to reject the remand—for lack of constitutional or lawful basis—to force the Senate to continue with the proceedings.
Ready to comply, but…
But 1-Rider Rep. Rodge Gutierrez said whether the impeachment court had the power to return the articles of impeachment “is something not for us to decide,” but rejecting the return would have to wait for its clarifications and then “we would decide if it’s clear enough and that it is something we can actually comply with.”
Romualdez had said that the House was ready “to comply with the requirements of the impeachment court, not to abandon our cause, but to ensure the process continues.”
Still, the Senate’s decision as an impeachment court was “deeply concerning,” the Speaker said, maintaining that the House “acted not out of haste, but with deliberate care.”
“We followed the law, we honored our mandate,” Romualdez said.
Zamora said that the Senate had no constitutional authority to return the articles of impeachment to the House, especially now that it issued summons to Duterte.
“What would they attach to the summons? The articles of impeachment of course because that is what the Vice President is expected to answer,” she added.
